Manufacturers, energy firms amp up output with SAS® Analytics

Equipment failures aren't merely costly – they can be dangerous for employees and disastrous for the environment. Predictive analytics from business analytics leader SAS helps aircraft maintenance providers, manufacturers, energy companies and more use big data collected from machines and equipment to predict issues before they cause brutal disruptions.

SAS® Predictive Asset Maintenance helps companies like POSCO and Shell Exploration & Production Company avoid unplanned downtime and keep production goals on target. With the added power of SAS® Visual Analytics, companies can easily analyze data to find systemic root causes, ensure higher safety and protect production commitments.

"Competitive pressure and increasingly tight regulations require analytical solutions that exceed traditional asset management systems," said Reinhard Hoene, SAS Senior Product Manager. "Organizations that couple predictive analytics with visual analytics essentially have a data 'GPS' helping them find the critical information in their mountain of data. Being able to see performance degradations early and take preventive measures before an issue becomes a costly or dangerous problem – that is priceless."

For large-scale projects such as massive defense contracts, a critical lack of predictive analytics is almost like flying blind.

"Operational disruptions and catastrophic accidents often happen when maintenance procedures aren't followed reliably," said Andrew Hess, President of the PHM Society and former lead for prognostics and health management (PHM) on the US Department of Defense's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. "When you can't accurately predict impending failures and estimate useful life remaining, you risk significant reduction in system availability.

"SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance takes the guesswork out of equipment maintenance," he continues, explaining that predictable equipment maintenance is a constant consideration in many industries, including defense, oil and gas production, and manufacturing. Hess advises companies against trying to create their own alert systems. "Why build your own when SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance has what you need and then some? This proven software provides accurate insight into what needs attention before disaster strikes or operations suffer. It's a no-brainer."

Fortifying Hess' view, other industry experts identify unscheduled downtime as one of the biggest challenges facing energy processing plants. The ARC Advisory Group says unscheduled shutdowns and slowdowns account for as much as 7 percent of lost production. The US Department of Energy estimates that a functional predictive maintenance program could create a tenfold return on investment, increasing production up to 25 percent.

SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance can help a company move from a reactive "What's happening?" to a predictive "What needs service or replacement now to keep production humming during the next service cycle?" Recent upgrades to SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance offer an expanded data model, greater data selection options and a flexible framework that supports various industries. With SAS Predictive Asset Maintenance, companies can extend the life of expensive assets without increasing the likelihood of equipment failures.

SAS Visual Analytics is a high-performance, in-memory solution designed to quickly explore large amounts of data. Users can spot patterns, identify opportunities for further analysis and convey visual results via Web reports or iPad® and Android tablets.

SAS Visual Analytics quickly reads data into memory for ultra-fast processing and the resulting data visualization. Users can then explore all data, execute analytic correlations on billions of rows of data in just minutes or seconds, and visually present results.